It is well known to interconnect units in a computer system by means of a bus. For example, a host processor may be connected to a number of disk drive units by a bus, such as for example a standard SCSI (small computer system interface) bus. An advantage of using a SCSI bus is that there are many standard, commercially available units, such as SCSI disk drive units, which can be connected to the bus.
A problem with some known busses, such as single-ended SCSI busses, is that they may suffer from high bus capacitance and reflections, due to the small physical separation between the devices, which significantly reduces the rate of data transfer over the bus and/or limits the number of units that can be connected to the bus. These problems can be avoided to some extent by using more complex forms of bus, such as the differential SCSI bus, but such busses tend to be significantly more expensive.
The object of the present invention is to overcome these problems in a novel manner.